The TikTok anime girl AI filter is now apparently invading television as well. A popular Italian satirical news show used the filter on the two female dancers during its latest broadcast as a bombastic opening for its 36th season.
Striscia la Notizia is a satirical Italian TV show that mocks the classic evening news format. Its usual slot on TV is that of the access primetime, on Canale 5, one of the channels originally founded by Silvio Berlusconi in the 80s. Created by Antonio Ricci, the long-running program has been labelled as right-wing, despite the studio stating otherwise. The show has often being criticized especially for the objectification of their women dancers, the "veline".
The term, which literally means "thin paper sheets", originally made sense since the two women were tasked with bringing the hosts papers to read. But that was short-lived, as the veline would soon become just scantily-clad dancers. The misogynistic term has since entered the Italian vocabulary as well to mean a woman that gets by on her looks alone. But we do know the veline are still talented dancers.
But still, it is no surprise perhaps that the show took the next natural step in female objectification, by using the veline - now perhaps "waifine" - in the opening few minutes of its season 36th season premiere. In the latest episode of Striscia la Notizia, the two dancers are indeed seen for several seconds through the now classic anime AI TikTok filter.
The peculiar choice doesn't seem to have been addressed in any significant way by the show producers or the hosts, but the Striscia la Notizia Twitter account did ask its followers: "do you prefer the veline as 2D or 3D anime avatars?". Interestingly, many in the past had poked fun at Striscia la Notizia, by merging the show, the hosts and "the veline" with the Evangelion opening theme.
First boosting the prosciutto Metaverse experience and now primetime TV with anime AI girl filter, we think it's safe to say that Italy is already living in the year 2077. They skipped the present to safely arrive in that romantic dystopic future.
[This news has been updated on 2 October 2023 to reflect a request from the Striscia la Notizia press office]
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